


baby, you're gonna lose your own game

by AndreaLyn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gay Bar, M/M, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25976731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Andy cheats at drawing straws, Joe’s a pretty thing, Nicky’s overly possessive act isn’t really an act, and Booker’s like nectar to a bunch of young gay bees.AKA: It’s 2015 and they’ve been hired to take out a drug runner and the best way to do that is going undercover and running a honeypot trap at the gay club.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 108
Kudos: 968





	baby, you're gonna lose your own game

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Muse's excellent _Plug In, Baby_ , and thanks go to Tove for looking over things to make sure the pace worked!

Andy cheats when they draw straws. Booker knows it. 

He just can’t _prove_ it, but he knows she has to be doing it. 

That’s the only explanation he has for why he keeps _losing_ and especially losing on specific missions where they need someone to go with Joe and Nicky and be a spotter. Apparently, before Booker came along, Andy got stuck with the short straw most of the time and according to her, Renaissance Italy had been miserable. As expected, they’d drawn straws for the latest mission and Booker lost _again_.

(Because Andy cheats)

This mission ought to be simple, which is what Booker keeps telling himself to soothe the loss.

They’ve been contracted to take down a drug runner who’s been making Amsterdam his playground and putting people in the hospital with his tainted supply. At least four teenagers have already died, which got the attention of the kind of people who reach out to them for a _permanent_ solution. Their local sources shared that he has quite the taste for ‘pretty things’. 

“Then he’ll love Joe,” Nicky had insisted, like he isn’t whoring out his husband for a job. 

Maybe Nicky’s just tired of being bait, seeing as he’s heard plenty of stories of what happens when a mark takes too much of an interest in Nicky. Forget Joe. Nicky’s not allowed daggers on certain missions now when the bad guy gets a little too handsy. 

So this is Booker’s lot in life. 

Nicky and Joe need to get ready for their trap and Booker’s on identification. It doesn’t take him long to dig up some forged passports, while Andy’s surveillance turns up the name of the local club that their drug runner, Jansen, frequents. The club boasts about its nightly raves and guarantee of a good time. That’s the part Booker’s miserable about. “Why do so many of these things happen in clubs?” he mutters his complaint.

“You drew the short straw,” Andy replies without a shred of sympathy. She salutes him with her mug of tea, tucking a book under her arm to go find her nice cozy armchair and enjoy her night without pounding club music or idiot sweaty adults trying to fuck one another. 

At least there’ll be something to drink. 

Next time, they’re flipping a coin, though. He’s pretty sure Andy isn’t as well-versed in cheating when coins are involved (though there’s no telling with that woman). 

Booker sighs as he checks his watch. It’s nine, which means they need to get moving. Jansen keeps a private booth and usually rolls in around eleven, but they need to be there earlier to scope out the bar, the staff, and establish themselves before Jansen arrives. 

He taps the passports against his palm, heading down the hall to Joe and Nicky’s room where he can hear the sound of clothes rustling inside. They’re here, which is good. Nicky had vanished to the shops earlier and given his tendency to amble when he shops, Booker half-thought they wouldn’t get a shot at this mission until the weekend at the pace he browsed. 

Booker pounds his fist on the door, tipping his head back to try and bolster himself for what he knows is going to be a ridiculously long night. “Open up,” he demands, leaning his elbow against the frame beside the door. 

“ _Aspetta!_ ” Nicky snaps from behind the door. “There are very sharp things very near to my body!”

“It’ll grow back,” Booker growls. “Open up, I have your IDs.” 

There’s a hush of conversation inside, almost like they’re debating it, but then the lock of the door is unlatched. Booker wanders in after Joe, watching as he settles back on the bed with Nicky. 

Chaos is what he’s walked into.

“What the fuck happened in here?” Booker asks, gaping at the disaster zone that litters the bedroom. He can only see the back of Joe’s head, bent over as he applies eyeliner to Nicky. There are at least a dozen outfits on the bed, but Nicky looks ready to go. His hair’s been getting long these days and he’s slicked it back, wearing an open glittering blazer with no shirt beneath that reveals his shaved chest. He’s also sporting a pair of painfully tight looking black trousers, and there’s a pair of men’s heels by the door that he clearly intends to wear, which will make him loom over Joe. 

Fuck, Booker hasn’t seen those in centuries.

When he gets close enough, he grabs Joe by the chin. “ _Putain de bordel de merde_ ,” he murmurs.

“Careful,” Joe says sharply. “We don’t have time for Nicky to grow back an eye so I can do this again.”

“You shaved.”

He’s seen Joe with a close shave before, but never like this. His cheeks are practically gleaming and reflecting light, they’re so smooth. “Aren’t you getting ready?” Joe demands, grabbing a shred of fabric that apparently is a top, pulling it on. He thinks it’s a crop top? Something like that. It’s 2015, but Booker has no intention of learning about any of the latest fashions.

They’re all going to change and fade away. 

“You’re one to talk,” Booker scoffs, handing Nicky the IDs, because at least he has pockets. “Where the fuck are your pants?”

“I’m already wearing them,” Joe boasts. 

He’s wearing underwear, that’s what he’s wearing. The shorts barely cover anything at all. Booker averts his eyes instantly, because he’s pretty sure Nicky will kill him if he stares too long at Joe’s ass, but in his defense, it’s hanging out of his pants. “You’re seducing Jansen, not the entire city.”

“I can do both,” Joe breezily replies. “Can’t I, Nicky?”

“We don’t tell Joe what he can’t do,” Nicky agrees serenely, batting his eyes. “Good?” he checks with Joe. 

Joe hums thoughtfully, reaching out to swipe a stray piece of eyeliner with his thumb. “Good enough,” he admits. “I need more practice, it’s been too long.”

“I’m sure Nicky will let you practice tomorrow,” Booker mutters, trying to gesture for them to get moving so they can get this over with. He’s counting cash for them, handing wads over to pay for cover and drinks (and maybe drugs, if necessary). He kicks the pair of combat boots over towards Joe, grateful to see him putting them on, which means dress-up is over. 

The sooner they get there, the sooner this is over with.

“Jansen sits in a booth at the top of the club,” he shares Andy’s information. “He likes to pick a man from the dance floor and invites him up for the night. There’s scaffolding for audio on the opposite side,” he tells Nicky. “You two know what you’re going to do?”

Nicky is listening thoughtfully, tucking his identification and money into his back pocket. Given how tight the pants are, Booker’s pretty sure he can see the denomination. 

Once they’re in the club, Booker’s leaving it in their hands. He’s the spotter, there to watch out for any trouble and make sure that Joe gets a clear path to what he needs to do. “Get in, establish myself on the floor,” Joe interprets with a nod. “Make sure I’m every bit as pretty as Nicky tells me that I am.”

“And I take the perimeter after I make sure everyone else in the club knows that Joe is off limits so Jansen has a clear shot at him.”

“Then, when he arrives, I make eye contact with Jansen and make him think I’m ready to trade my body for whatever top drugs he has to offer, lure him into the back alley, where we finish him off,” Joe finishes the thought. “Andy stashed a bag with a silencer and a pistol in it earlier today with the clean up materials. I get him there, Nicky defends my honour by pulling the trigger, we tidy up the trash.”

Nicky nods dutifully, but even though they’re saying all the right things, Booker can’t take them seriously with what they’re wearing. 

It’s a good plan. If they do it right, they’ll be in and out before closing and the city will have one less scumbag haunting its streets. Besides, after the despotic countries they’ve been in, the literal gutters, and varying prisons, one nightclub can’t be all that bad, can it? 

“Let’s go,” Booker encourages, “Before a breeze takes away the last slip of Joe’s decency.”

Joe snorts, draping an arm around Nicky’s shoulders as they head off to the car. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a job, and Booker doesn’t intend to forget that. He rolls his eyes and pushes Joe inside the passenger’s seat, Nicky into the back to separate them, and gets them to the club so they can take down an asshole.

* * *

Booker takes it back.

Clubs aren’t bad.

They’re the fucking _worst_. It’s louder in here than he remembers it being at clubs and he swears that his eardrums must be constantly mending for the loud thumping bass. Booker instantly heads to the bar, glad that it curves around and puts his back to the wall and gives him a vantage point of the rest of the club.

This is where he’s setting up operations. 

Clad in his t-shirt and denim button-down on top of a pair of his dark chinos and hiking boots, Booker knows he looks out of place, but that still doesn’t explain the amount of attention he’s been getting. 

It’s only been twenty minutes and already he’s had three men approach him with an offer to buy drinks. Booker sees number four out of the corner of his eye. “No, thank you,” he mumbles, sending another disappointed young man off. 

Joe cackles with laughter from where he’s leaning against the bar on the other side of him. With his goddamn unlaced combat boots, his too-pretty face, and most of his skin on display, he should be the one getting hit on and offered to have drinks paid for, but apparently, people love to crack a tough nut. “You’re alluring and slightly unattainable,” Joe says loudly over the music, when Booker’s scowl must demand to know why this keeps happening. “They can’t help it.”

“And what about you? Where’s your alluring man to buy you drinks?” 

Nicky had vanished nearly the moment they arrived, but not before he’d grabbed Joe’s chin with his hand, gripping him possessively tight as he yanked him in for a fierce kiss, his heel stuck between Joe’s boots and grinding against him right in the middle of the club.

It screamed: _Hands off, he’s mine_ while also giving Joe an avenue to flirt with whoever _he_ chose, playing at being dissatisfied with his current man. 

Joe nods towards the balcony with his chin. “Finishing up his sweep,” he says, hips absently moving to the music. The mark’s not here, but some of his goons are, and Joe’s putting on a show for them. He’s trying to get noticed, so that when Jansen arrives, he’ll already be the centre of attention. 

Between Joe making himself a point of focus for Jansen’s guards and Nicky’s little possessive flair, it explains why no one is hitting on him. No one wants to incur the wrath of the kind of people Joe runs with. 

What Booker doesn’t get is why that leaves _him_ exposed and apparently fair game. 

Nicky’s return gives a blissful interruption to the onslaught of young pretty things trying to buy Booker drinks, with his get-up screaming not to fuck with anyone around him. If only they knew that Nicky, their kind-hearted, sweet Nicky, would sooner buy everyone in this bar a drink than tell them to fuck off. 

Dressed as he is and scowling so prettily, no one would believe it.

The club lights make his glittering blazer shimmer and the eyeliner gives his eyes the effect of a dark glare. He slides behind Joe and wraps his arm around him, yanking him in as he bends his head to press a biting kiss to Joe’s neck, even as Joe makes ‘ah ah ah’ noises, before Booker hears Joe laugh suddenly and twitch. “There’s my alluring man,” Joe says calmly, keeping his smile even and almost subdued considering what Nicky is doing to him.

“Jansen’s here,” Nicky murmurs. He presses a palm to Joe’s bare skin at his stomach near the frayed edge of the crop top. It gives Nicky ample room to snake his fingers under. He sways with him, and presses his fingers just a little too tight. It’s overly possessive and Booker has to wonder just how much of it is for the job.

Joe tips his head back, lazy and casual, looking like he’s tipsy even though Booker knows he hasn’t had anything to drink. In Italian, he asks, “ _You done your pass?_ ”

Nicky confirms with a nod, eyes tracking to the upstairs where there’s a catwalk with audio equipment. “I’ll be there to watch,” he mumbles. “Are you ready to go dance and make it seem like you want nothing to do with my touch?”

“It’ll be good enough to win awards,” Joe vows. “Booker?”

“I got your six,” he confirms, shooing them. “Go, get out of here.”

Nicky leads them away and they disappear into the throng of people on the dance floor. No sooner than they’re gone does Booker get his next round of attention. 

“Hi,” a voice speaks nervously at Booker’s arm. “Um, can I buy you a drink?”

He lifts his glass, not bothering to look up from where he’s hunched over. “I have a drink.” He should be immune to this. Given his attitude and what he’s wearing, he should be the last one being looked at. If anything, it’s Nicky and Joe who should be swarmed, even though it’s better for the job if they aren’t.

Nicky’s little possessive act (which is less an act than Nicky wants them to believe it is) helps with that score. Booker sees it happening. Every time someone dances too close to Joe or looks too long, Nicky hauls him back and holds him tighter, gripping his chin to turn him into a claiming kiss, his fingers dragging over the body that belongs to him.

Maybe they should make Joe be the honeypot more often. It’s not often Nicky gets to cast off the curtain and let the whole world know just how proud he is of Joe. 

The bartender takes pity on him once Booker’s sent the latest in a line of young men trying to seduce him away. “You know, if you talked to them, they might realize you’re not the great unattainable unknown,” he says in French. Booker squints at him, not sure how he got clocked in Amsterdam as a Frenchman, but the bartender smirks. “You swear, a lot,” he tells him. 

He needs to get creative and start swearing in Russian again.

The bartender pushes his floppy auburn curls back from his forehead, in the midst of mixing drinks, but the night seems to have moved on to less alcohol and more drugs. It leaves him free to talk. Booker glances back to the writhing mass on the dance floor to pick out Nicky (nearly the tallest thing there in his heels), but his quick glance shows that they’re moving to the next part of this plan. Nicky’s sliding out of the crowd, probably with some excuse that he’s off to the washroom or to fetch drugs. It leaves Joe open and exposed. Within minutes, one of Jansen’s thugs had waded in to fetch Joe and summon him to Jansen’s booth. 

Booker snorts into his beer as he watches Joe ascend the ranks, up towards Jansen’s bird’s nest. His moves are languid and smooth, but there’s a defiant and victorious glint in his eyes when Booker catches them in the light. 

“There are other bars, you know, if you hate the attention so much,” the bartender offers. “Henry,” he introduces himself. 

“Seb,” Booker says, reaching out to shake his hand. He gestures, loosely, to where Joe is canoodling with Jansen. “My friends wanted to come here. My offer to go to a quiet bar where I could watch football lost.”

Henry glances towards the booth up top, his brow furrowing. “I don’t usually like to tell people their business, but your friend shouldn’t spend time with Jansen. What happened to the other man? I think he’d be better suited to choose him, even if he seemed a bit moody.” 

“My friend can handle himself,” Booker murmurs, staring at his empty drink. He lifts up the heavy glass. “Seeing as I’m here for a while longer, another?” 

Henry looks wary, but he drags his eyes away from where Joe is canoodling with Jansen, serving Booker up a refill. Booker salutes him with his glass, turning on his stool to check that Nicky is secure on the scaffolding. He’s on his stomach, the glitter obscured by his position and the only sign he’s there coming from the occasional reflection of a spotlight off the glass of his scope. With all the other machinery reflecting light beside him, it’s not suspicious.

On the opposite side of the club, Joe’s laugh is so loud that Booker hears it over the lulls in music. Jansen’s hands are all over him, stroking his abs, his cheeks, and burying his face in Joe’s neck with kisses. 

The mark is clearly entranced because Joe is very good at what he does.

Booker is wildly grateful that he’s not the one up there. He’d do it, but he thinks that a part of him would die inside to have to pretend to like that piece of shit. It’s better that it’s Joe, who can still flirt with an evil man knowing what’s going to come to him. 

The trick here is getting Jansen away from the club so they can do their work. Joe’s working on sweet-talking Jansen, playing with the hem of his pants. Even from here, Booker can see the way he’s whispering to him. He’s going to convince him that privacy is better for what they’re going to do. He’s going to plead for the drugs Jansen is known for handing out. With nothing more than his charm and his body, Joe is going to convince Jansen that they should move to a secondary location. If anyone’s going to do it, it’ll be Joe. 

Booker’s down to the last dregs of his drink when he sees Joe lift his fingers to perform an elaborate twirling twist with them. 

That’s the signal. It’s time to move.

He sees Nicky’s scope vanish from the other lights, moving fast to get into position outside. Joe straddles Jansen’s lap and puts his back to Booker, but then he’s swiftly on his feet, which means that he thinks he’s got Jansen entranced enough to move to the alley where they’re set up. 

“Excuse me,” Booker tells the bartender, but he leaves his glass. “I’ll be back to settle my tab, just gotta piss,” he vows, keeping his eye on Joe coaxing Jansen to follow him. The drag of two fingers under Jansen’s chin is a move he’s seen Joe use before with Nicky to guide him off to another room so they could make out for hours.

In this case, they’re heading out to the alley and Jansen is never going to get even an ounce of what Nicky would. 

Booker pushes open the fire escape and stands with his back pressed to it so no one else can come this way. Nicky is already there, appallingly easy to spot in his get-up, looking even more ridiculous wielding a gun. He’s crouched over, tamping down the trash bags between the dumpsters, which means they’re ready to go.

He snorts, gesturing to him. “You still look stupid.”

“I blended in,” Nicky protests, nodding towards the other end of the alley. Joe’s taken Jansen through the front door and is leading him towards the two of them. At the sight of them, Nicky pushes away and grabs at the fire escape, climbing up to set himself up from a higher angle, where he’ll have the clean shots he needs.

“Hey! Listen to me, I told you, the drugs I have for you are in the washroom.”

“Washroom?” Joe echoes, sounding fuzzy and dazed. “I was hoping we could have a quickie here. You could have me against the brick. I love it when it’s rough,” he says, and gives Jansen a little light push towards where Booker and Nicky are waiting.

It’s the wrong move.

Jansen’s temper flares at the touch and his control being wrenched from him, grabbing Joe by both arms and hauling him in like somehow, he can use force to steal it back. 

“Where are you taking me, you little tramp?” Jansen hisses, yanking Joe forward by the crop top so hard that he stumbles over the uneven cobblestones in the alley and ends up flat on his face, scraped up and missing a tooth.

Booker hisses a breath in between his teeth. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he warns. Jansen’s eyes widen with panic when he sees that there’s someone else here, but it vanishes quickly.

He probably thinks this is a problem he can solve like any other, by throwing money or drugs at it, or using violence to get his way.

“Not that rough,” Joe laments, brushing himself off, though he doesn’t bother to get up from where he’s lying on the ground on his back. “There are consequences when you break the pretty, shiny things.”

Jansen doesn’t seem to know what he means, but Booker’s in a helping mood. He whistles to catch Jansen’s attention, flicking his fingers to guide him to look at the fire escape, where Nicky is currently sprawled with his legs dangling from the first little ledge. The moment Jansen sees him, the panic sets in and doesn’t leave. 

“Andrei! Javier!” His calls for his security guards falls on deaf ears.

Well, in this case, dead ones.

They’re both lying crumpled on the ground with a single bullet wound in their forehead. While Jansen searches for his escape, Joe’s pushing himself back up to his feet, tooth back in place, scrapes healed. He gives Nicky a dismayed look and reaches out to help him descend from the fire escape, Nicky’s boots hitting the ground with a resounding connection of heel to cobblestone. 

Booker almost feels bad for Jansen, if he weren’t a piece of shit that they’ve been paid to remove. He really has no idea what’s coming to him.

“My love,” Joe sighs, “You’re not going to let him treat me like that, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Nicky says as he bears in on Jansen, pressing the barrel of the gun to his forehead to back him up to where garbage bags have been set up. 

Booker checks the alley and nods when it’s clear. With the silencer, taking Jansen out is smooth and anticlimactic, though cleanup is going to be a bitch. Jansen’s body crumples in Nicky’s hold, collapsing in a heap even though Nicky does his best to ease him down. Once Jansen is propped against the wall, Nicky darts back out to get the guards, moving elegantly in those heels (enough to make Booker wonder how much he’s _practiced_ ). 

“I thought you were going to keep the guards inside,” he mutters to Joe.

“The man’s a control freak,” Joe says, shaking his head as he bends to help Nicky drag Andrei and Javier over to the trash bags where they can get them bundled away. “He wouldn’t let us go without his muscle.” Joe turns a bright grin on Nicky, accompanied with a wink. “Lucky for me, I don’t go anywhere without mine.”

The sound of people singing and shouting near the entrance is a reminder that they need to work fast or risk witnesses. The way Nicky is staring, enraptured, by Joe’s wink tells him that they also need to move before the two of them bleed time flirting (yes, they’ll get the job done, but then they’ll be here all goddamn night). 

Booker nods to the fire exit door. “I’ll go settle the bill. The car’s around back,” he says, tossing Nicky a pair of keys (which he palms with a graceful catch). “I’ll meet you there in ten.”

“Copy,” Joe vows, bending to knot his combat boots so they can get to work.

While they wrap up Jansen and the guards in tarp and garbage bags, Booker slips back inside the club. He makes a pit stop at the washroom to wash off any incriminating evidence before he returns to the bar, but he doesn’t bother to sit down. 

“End of the night?” Henry asks, when Booker digs out cash to settle his bill. 

Inside the club, there’s no indication that anything is wrong. Jansen’s bird nest has only remained empty for so long, with drunk party goers having filled it (Booker suspects Joe had a little something to do with that, suggesting they take up the free real estate on his way out). It means it will take a little time for the remaining security to get them gone and realize that something is wrong. It’ll give them plenty of time to escape. “Mm, yeah,” Booker confirms. “You were right. Jansen wasn’t my friend’s type. He found someone else.”

“That guy from before? The one with the jacket and the nose?”

Booker snorts loudly, wishing that Andy could’ve heard that one.

“Yeah,” he agrees, adding another twenty as a tip just for that comment alone. “The one with the nose.” 

By now, Nicky and Joe should have loaded up the bodies in the trunk of their car for disposal and they need to be moving. With a few taps on his phone, Booker turns the club’s exterior security cameras back on. So long as he keeps his head down, there’ll be no trace that the three of them ever existed here, apart from a few good stories.

“Remember,” Henry says, “Next time, just talk to them. You’re still gorgeous, so they’ll still flock to you, but the unknown is always so much more attractive.” 

“And lose the company of a good bartender?” Booker replies, leaning forward to finish the last of his brandy he’d left from earlier. “Thanks for the conversation.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Henry replies, waving him off with the cash. “Tell your friend he made a good decision picking nose guy.”

“Oh,” Booker snorts, pushing his way out of the club by fighting uphill like a salmon upstream -- only upstream here are young pretty people drunk out of their minds and Booker is a very tired salmon. “He already knows.”

* * *

Andy’s waiting up for them like the mother hen she secretly is, and Booker is completely unsurprised. It doesn’t matter what hour it is, she wants to make sure they did the job (and is probably looking for a story or two).

She might not want to be the spotter anymore, but she clearly still wants the gossip.

There’s coffee in the pot, which Booker makes a beeline for. Even if he hadn’t taken any of the pretty young things up on their drinks, keeping watch at the bar had done a number on his liver and coffee was clearly the only answer. “Was the mission successful?” Andy asks. 

“One less drug runner roaming the streets,” Joe announces triumphantly, prying off the crop top and accepting Nicky’s hoodie from the man’s long fingers where it dangled. “ _Grazie, amore_ ,” he murmurs, reaching over to wipe a stray droplet of blood off Nicky’s cheek, along with some eyeliner that’s shifted over the night. “It was a nice club,” he appraises. “We should really go out more often.”

“Booker made lots of friends,” says Nicky, the traitorous bastard that he is.

Andy gives Booker a smug little smile. “Did he?” 

“Just one worth anything,” Booker confirms, giving Nicky a vicious smirk that says he’ll get his own once he tells Andy about the conversation he and Henry had. Filling his mug with coffee, he gestures to the balcony. “Come on,” he encourages Andy, knowing enough to give Joe and Nicky some privacy after the night they had. “I’ll let you two have the washroom first.”

“Nicky first,” Joe insists, kissing Andy’s cheek and clapping Booker on the back. “It was a good mission,” he says cheerfully. “I like playing the pretty young thing.” He scratches at his bare face, even as Nicky stares mournfully. He’s not too upset, though, given the way he keeps absently groping Joe’s ass where it hangs out from the shorts.

Booker rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry, it’ll grow back.”

“Until it does, I will have to lust after yours,” Nicky says, matter of factly. “Just to make you feel like you’re at home in the club again.” 

This is why these missions are torture. Booker gestures to Nicky like this is _evidence_ , like Andy will suddenly take pity on him. At least Booker’s going to get a respite, because Nicky knows not to turn down the offer for the open washroom. If he does, Booker might decide to rescind it and steal it for himself just so Joe and Nicky can suffer with blue balls a little longer. 

“Oh, don’t bitch,” she sighs. “I put up with it…”

“For forty years,” Joe cuts her off, draping an arm around Nicky’s torso, possessively holding onto him in a reverse from the club earlier. He kisses Nicky’s temple (earning a sad little whine from Nicky about how it’s too smooth), and nudges him towards the washroom. 

“And if you never see another brocade doublet, it’ll be too soon,” Booker ends the old Andy saying. “One less drug runner in the world. Payment?”

“In the account and tickets to anywhere waiting for us,” Andy verifies. “See, Book? Just like Nicky says. We’re doing some good.”

Next time, Booker just hopes they can do some good where people wear _normal_ clothes and they don’t take his indifference as a challenge to hit on him. He knows there are places in the world like that out there. He knows there are. 

And until they find those missions, he’s going to figure out a way to cheat at straws too, so one of these times, it’s Andy’s turn.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I can be found [on tumblr](https://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/).


End file.
